Chapter 552: I’ll Wait for You Until I’m 35 (Part 2)
“O-of course I’ll post first!”
As soon as Li Zhi finished speaking, she frantically tapped her phone a few times, then smacked Shen Yuan’s arm as if afraid he’d ask another question.
“I-I posted it! Happy now?!”
Her tone was rushed, clearly trying to end the conversation.
Before Shen Yuan could get a clear look at her screen, Li Zhi had already whipped her phone into her desk compartment, the movement so fast it practically created a gust of wind.
The next second, she lowered her head, almost burying her entire face in the open textbook on her desk.
Her slender fingers pressed firmly against the page, the tips pushing down on the paper as if trying to force all her lingering embarrassment and anxiety about her post’s reception back down.
She picked up her pen, putting on an act of being completely absorbed in her studies, oblivious to everything around her.
However, the faint blush that hadn’t quite faded from her fair ears and her tightly pursed lips revealed that the ripples her post had stirred in her heart were far from calm.
Watching her transparent attempt to cover up her feelings, the corners of Shen Yuan’s mouth curled silently into an even wider smile.
He didn’t immediately check his own phone, nor did he expose her little secret. He simply watched the top of her bowed head and her slightly flushed profile for a few seconds, the amusement in his eyes practically overflowing.
Then, without hesitation, he tapped “post.”
“Done!”
Having finished, Shen Yuan rubbed his hands together excitedly, as if he’d just accomplished something major.
He immediately turned his phone screen toward Li Zhi, his tone a mix of smugness and a desire for praise. “Li Bao, Li Bao, look! I posted it! A perfect copy of your layout! Didn’t change a single pixel!”
Li Zhi, her head still buried in her book, didn’t even look up. She just let out a soft huff through her nose, her fingers still unconsciously tracing circles on the page. The tips of her bright red ears gave away that she wasn’t really focused on reading.
Shen Yuan didn’t mind. He knew this was just how she was—all awkward and flustered.
He grinned, pulled his phone back, and swiped quickly at the screen, eager to refresh his feed.
“Let’s see what Li Bao posted.”
Shen Yuan muttered excitedly as he opened his social media feed.
He scrolled instinctively. His own recent post was still new.
As he scrolled, a new post, time-stamped just “1 minute ago,” instantly caught his eye—
It was from Li Zhi.
The nine-square grid layout was indeed identical to his, and the photo in the center—the “two hearts gazing at each other”—was still particularly striking and beautiful even as a thumbnail.
His eyes then moved to the caption Li Zhi had written.
The smile on Shen Yuan’s face—that bright, sunny smile—instantly froze.
It was as if someone had hit a pause button. His hand, poised to hit “like,” froze in place.
His finger hovered over the cold screen of his phone, but his mind felt like it was roaring.
A few words were displayed clearly on the screen:
—I’ll wait for you until I’m 35.
Shen Yuan’s mouth fell open, but no words came out.
In a daze, the tapestry of his life at 35—the one he had glimpsed in the system—was violently torn apart in the depths of his consciousness!
The powerlessness of being a corporate drone, the suffocation of the workplace, the exhaustion from his love life, the shame of not meeting his parents’ expectations…
And finally, the profound sense of failure and belated awkwardness when he met his childhood sweetheart, from whom he’d been estranged for years, at a matchmaking session.
These fragments, like shards of broken glass, flooded his mind along with the piercing number “35.”
This was the cold, hard fact the system had instilled in him—that after a long separation, he and Li Zhi would end up together at 35 in such a bleak way.
And now, it formed the cruelest contrast with the resounding word “wait” on the screen of the girl before him.
An indescribable sense of destiny, bone-chillingly cold, seized Shen Yuan in an instant.
The caption he had designed was his declaration—as someone who had foreseen the future—against the pathetic fate the system had shown him.
It was the script he wanted to rewrite.
But what about Li Zhi?
Li Zhi, who knew nothing, who was only responding to his joking “35-year-old” meme.
Li Zhi, who had naively written “I’ll wait for you until I’m 35″…
The tender promise in her words, tinged with stubbornness, had turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy, perfectly mirroring the “truth” he had seen.
In that future, they really did make each other wait for so long, only to have a rushed, desperate reunion at the crossroads of age 35!
‘No…’
‘I’m the one who made Li Zhi wait for so long.’
This realization struck his heart like a hammer wrapped in blades of ice.
Pain—a sharp, aching sorrow—spread rapidly through him, nearly suffocating him.
His breath caught as if seized by an invisible hand.
He stared at the words on the screen, then instinctively turned his head, his gaze locking onto the silhouette of the girl beside him, who had her face buried in a book to hide her shyness.
The soft afternoon light traced her focused profile, making her look impossibly gentle.
This was the girl who, completely unaware, had just pierced him in his most vulnerable spot with a casual yet powerful reply.
Shen Yuan took a very slow breath, as if trying to inhale and crush all the lingering winter chill along with the heavy emotions surging within him.
“Idiot…”
Shen Yuan called out to her, his voice already tinged with a faint, almost imperceptible hoarseness.
Li Zhi, who was pretending to be engrossed in her book, flinched. Her face, still buried in the pages, instinctively started to turn toward him, but just then, a strong yet gentle force swiftly wrapped around her shoulders.